life, as it is

Navigation

Tag Archives: writing prompt

Post navigation

Ever since I was little, my purpose has always been to lead my people. To follow in my father’s and grandfater’s steps. I can remember the endless strategy and battle training my grandfather had me go through since I was but a small child.

Then came a force greater than any of us could imagine and took our kingdom away from us and I was thrust into a world I knew nothing of. After my father disappeared and my mother perished, my purpose became to keep my younger siblings alive. I lived my life making sure my family and my people had everything they needed. We may not have been at our true home, but we were comfortable.

Then I had a chance to reclaim our homeland. It became my purpose to reclaim that land not only for me but for my nephews and my people who had suffered enough. On that guest, I met a remarkable person. I did not realize it then, but that person would become my world.

However, I lost that privilege when I became so consumed with the riches of my newly reclaimed kingdom that I almost threw the person I called my world to their death. At least I thought so, but once again my love surprised me. I was forgiven on what we both thought to be my death bed and when I woke up and found their forgiveness was not a figment of my imagination I wowed to make my lover the happiest person in the world. It became my purpose and I hope I have fulfilled it to the best of my abilities, because without that person, I would not be here today.

Every time I saw my reflection anywhere, I saw the scars. They reminded me of the day I almost lost everything. Even though I managed to keep my friends alive and even stay alive myself, I feel like I lost so much. While in my own culture I would be a pariah because of these scars, now I live in a culture that says the scars I carry prove that I have strength and I have brought honor to my family. While I knew this to be true, I still could not see the beauty hiding behind my mangled face.

Now don’t get me wrong, I was glad to have those scars. For if I hadn’t stepped between my beloved and that blade that made these ugly scars, he would not be alive. I just could not fathom how he could ever look at my face and see the person he used to see. If I couldn’t see past the scars, how could he? I couldn’t not see him but at the same time I didn’t want him to see me like this, so I only went to see him at night when he was sleeping. I hadn’t even seen any of my friends since the battle, too afraid of seeing the pity on their faces.

However, being a social person, this self-inflicted isolation has started to take it’s toll on me. I had become careless when I left my room. One time one of my friends saw me creep out of my room late in the evening and tried to engage me in a conversation. I answered with some grunts and fled as soon as I could. I could see the confusion on my friend’s face and I know my isolation was as painful to him as it was to me.

This was also the night I was caught by my beloved when I sneaked into his room.

“Well look who finally shows their face” I froze when I heard his voice from the bed. Luckily I had not stepped into the light just yet, so I chose to stay in the shadows so he would not see my face.

“Hey, why are you so far. Come here” he whispered.

“I’d rather stay here”

“Are yo so afraid of me?” he asked voice full of sorrow. And before I could say anything he continued. “I do not blame you, I would be afraid of me too if I were you. I understand if you can never forgive me”

“NO!” I panicked. I saw his face fall.

“I mean…I’m not afraid of you”

“Then why are you all the way over there and not next to me”

I mumbled my answer, hoping he would not hear me.

“Could you repeat that?”

“I just…I don’t want you to see my face and see what I see every time I see my reflection somewhere. I want your last sight of me to be the way I was before”

“What do you mean?” he asked, confused.

“The…The scars are so ugly. I don’t want you to see me and not like what you see anymore” I was holding back the tears now.

“I could never not like what I see when I look at you. I love you”

“How could you look at me and see past the scars when even I can’t see past them?”

“Because I’ve never seen your face when I look at you. I see your heart, your beautiful soul. Why would that suddenly change?”

“Because I’m ugly!” I shout and now the floodgates open and I’m crying hysterically.

“Come here. Let me comfort you” he says, his arms open wide.

“Just promise my you won’t look at my face” I get out amidst the sobs.

“I promise”

I walk towards his bed, hands covering my face, afraid he might break his promise. When I finally get to the bed, I lay down next to him and cry into his chest. He whispers sweet nothings into my ear but does not pressure me into showing my face. He knows it would only make me clam up even harder. It is that, more than anything else, that makes me lift my face for him to see after my sobs have subsided. He looks at my face like he always has, face full of adoration, maybe even more than before. After he’s taken it all in, he speaks.

“You know these scars will fade, they won’t be this visible forever. And they make you even more beautiful than you were”

“How?” I ask, not believing what he’s saying.

“Because they are a sign of how much you love me. There is no more visible sign than that. You were ready to sacrifice your life so I and my nephews could live. I am honored that a creature as pure as you could love someone like me that much. After how I treated you just hours before you still stepped in front of a blade for me. I couldn’t ask for more. So if you still love me, I would love for you to stay here and have you by my side for the rest of our lives. But only if you want to stay”

There are many things one could say about secrets, but whatever people think of secrets, it is human nature to have them. Whether big or small, secrets have away of coming out eventually.

To me, secrets are sacred. If you tell someone else’s secret to someone, you have betrayed the most sacred trust ever. If you cannot keep someone else’s secret, don’t expect that someone else to keep your secrets either. You have to be prepared to face the consequences of your actions.

Personally, I have some, not necessarily secrets, but things I don’t tell people about myself or my history. I don’t know if I make a conscious decision to not tell these things to people, it’s just easier to not talk about them and they are not necessarily relevant to my life as of now. Yes, they have made me the person I am, but at this stage of my life they are not important enough to tell people that will not necessarily stay in my life that long. If the people stay in my life long enough, or I feel it is relevant to tell them, I will.

I think I am an honest and trustworthy person. When somebody tells me a secret, I will not tell it to anyone. I wouldn’t want other people to tell my secrets so I offer them the same courtesy. If someone deems me trustworthy enough to tell their secrets to, I will respect that trust and I hope the people I tell my secrets to will do the same. Tell my secrets to other people and you have my wrath to live with. And it will not be pretty.

Although I chose this one, I can’t say this is the only great quote, it’s just the first that came to my mind.

This is one of my favorite quotes for many reasons. It reminds me that it is okay to not always agree with my friends. I have strong opinions and I’m not afraid to voice them. If I sometimes find myself doubting myself in the face of my friends having differing opinions to mine, I remember these words.

Although the difference in opinion may create some bad feelings between us for a little while, I believe it will strengthen our friendship. And that is what I feel is the soul of this quote. That you may be afraid to stand up for what you believe in before your ‘enemies’ but in the end, their opinions do not matter but you will be even more afraid to stand against your friends because theirs does. But in the end, the leap of faith you take when standing up to your friends will pay up in the end because they are your friends and they love you.

Another reason why I love this quote is the tone it sets for Neville in Harry Potter. A boy who does not believe in himself gets recognition for once in his life and it gives him courage to be better. Even though he is awkward, clumsy and not that great in school, somebody recognizes he has potential. It also gives him the first validation for why he got sorted into Gryffindor.

I know I said I would write fiction in my prompts but I came across this Dumbledore quote and could not pass it up. I agree with Dumbledore wholeheartedly.

As some of you may know, I live in Finland. Finland is a cold country. The winters here can be quite cold. Although I don’t get cold that easily, I love the excuse to use wool socks. I have like dozens of them.

I start the use of wool socks in the autumn, when it gets so cold that I couldn’t wear my converse without the socks in them. My use continues all through winter and into spring.

They are so useful. I can use them in the evening when I’ve taken a shower and don’t want to put clean socks on but still don’t want my feet to get cold. But basically I wear them all the time. During the days on top of my normal socks and when it’s really cold outside in my shoes to keep my little bitty feet warm. And even at school, while sitting in class, I take off my shoes and put on my wool socks.

Since I study in a different city than my parents and go back there a couple times a year I have a stash at my place and at my parent’s place. This is one reason why I have so many. I also like to knit new ones so basically each year I make at least to new pairs for myself 🙂

So, unlike many other young people I am delighted at Christmas if I get a package that has new socks in it. And it’s not only because I love to get new wool socks but also because I know the effort and love you have to put in the knitting of those socks.

I promise that from this day forward I will at least try to write once a week. This once a week writing will be a kind of prompt writing. I will choose a line from a book I’ve read, a quote I’ve heard or a line/verse from a song I’ve heard and let my imagination run loose. I will try to make these writings a piece of fiction.

My morals, I’m not quite sure where they come from. Sure, some of them come from my family. Like, you have to treat people right. And my work morals are from my parents too. Violence is not an option, when it comes to either people or animals..

But there are also many things that I haven’t learned from my family, because I don’t have their morals in some topics. Or perhaps I’ve learned from them to be more tolerable than them.

I believe that you shouldn’t judge a person too quickly or because of their appearance or stuff like that. If someone doesn’t look like every other person, that’s not a bad thing. If someone has different skin color from mine, that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, or that they are less of a person than I am. The fact that someone is a gypsy, they’re not a thief. If someone is gay, lesbian, bi or transsexual, that doesn’t make them any less valuable or somehow disgusting. I try not to be prejudiced. That’s one of my morals I’ve learned to be better at than my family. I don’t judge people because of their race, religion, sexual orientation or any of that superficial stuff, but for the person they are.

If people believe in different things than I do, I don’t hate them. I always try to understand their side of things, and why they might think differently from me. I don’t have to be friends with everybody, and I won’t be friends with people who’s opinions in the world conflict with mine too much, but I’ll still tolerate them and try to understand why they think so.

However, the morals I value most of all in my list of morals, have to do with animals and nature. I think we humans have a moral responsibility to take care of the animals and plants around us. I’ve always cared more about animals than people. That’s because most of the time their suffering isn’t because of them, but because of us humans, and they can’t do anything about it. I hold the animals around us as(if not more) dear as humans. This is the most important moral of mine. If someone clashes too much with this, I will not like them. We will not be friends. I may not even tolerate a person who is too open about not caring about animals or the nature around us.

I can tolerate someone having different religion, different race, different sexual orientation or stuff like that. But I WILL NOT tolerate a person who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about animals or the environment. That just shows what kinda person they are, and it’s not a very nice person, so why should I tolerate someone like that?

My perfect rainy day would be making myself a perfect sitting spot in my favorite chair. Then I would make myself a cup of hot chocolate or tea, take a good book and sit down. Then I’d make myself comfortable and start reading.

With the relaxing sound of rain hitting the roof mixing with the quiet tunes of my favorite music coming trough the speakers in the background I can relax and lose myself in a great book. Once in a while I would pick up my mug and sip a little hot chocolate and then continue reading. While reading a book I can forget about the world around me and even loose track of time.

Personally, I don’t think there’s such thing as “normal” there’s just average. Most of the things we consider normal are just what we’re used to, but it’s not necessarily “normal”. Normal is whatever is normal to you. So, in a way we’re all normal. We may not be that for other people, but we are normal to ourselves.

Maybe I think like this because I’ve never liked the way some people treat the people who aren’t “normal”. If you are, for example, smarter or not as smart as the average person, people might tease you or treat you differently. I’ve seen this happening, and I don’t like it. Other things that makes people not “normal” to others is being, gay, lesbian or bisexual. Who you love shouldn’t make you abnormal. It’s not right. So it’s not “normal” to be straight, it’s what we’re used to if we don’t know anyone who isn’t. If a person has some kind of a disorder or decease that shows in their everyday life, that’s not “normal” to other people, but it’s normal to them. This is another thing that makes other people look down on you, or not wanna be your friend. I don’t see the point, we are all people. So, “normal” means average. Who wants to be average?

My opinion on being “normal” may be a product of never being “normal”. I’m short, loud, don’t care what other people think of me most of the time. I’m almost ten years younger than both of my siblings. I prefer the company of animals to people. I don’t even have a “normal” group of friends. Although we all have something in common, we are all very different. Some of my friends are religious, some like to party, some don’t like sports and stuff like that. Even in my family, I’m not “normal” I don’t care about people’s race, religion, or sexual orientation, like sometimes you could hear my father talking about these kinda people like they’re not people or like they’re doing something wrong. I try not to see past those things and see the person behind those trivial things. Not all of us have to be the same, that would be boring. My siblings like to live near our parents, I’d love to move abroad to study or after studying.

I think that everyone is normal in their own way. It’s normal for people to be different, think differently ,look different. It’s a richness. So why should we try to be “normal”? I at least wanna be something special, not “normal” or average.

Three people walk into a bar, they’re quite an extraordinary group. There’s the first boy who’s laughing at something the other boy said like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. His white-blond hair that is usually slicked back stylishly is wet, probably due the pouring rain outside. His grey eyes light up while he laughs. The other boys’ black hair is as messy as a bird’s nest, not even the rain manage flattening it up. He listens to the other boy’s laugh like it’s the best sound in the world.

Your mind is sidetracked when your eyes land on the red-headed girl in the middle of the two boys. She is complaining about the rain and how her hair is a mess because of it.You think she looks perfect. You wonder why she can’t see it. They sit in the corner, their usual table, take off their coats and the girl goes to fetch drinks for the three. The boys hardly even notice her coming back and giving them their drinks, they’re so engrossed in their conversation. The miracle is, the girl slips in the conversation like she never left it.

You debate going over there to talk to the girl, but are too intimidated by the two boys. Even though you know neither of them is her boyfriend, you know the black haired is her cousin and both boys are very protective over her. You’ve been so engrossed in your thoughts that you’ve missed someone sitting on the bar stool next to you. When you look to your right, you see the red-head smiling brightly at you.